The Mosquito Coast Analysis: Part 2 - Who is Allie Fox?

"A reasonable man adapts to the world.  Unreasonable one tries to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore, progress always depends on unreasonable ones."  - George Bernard Shaw

In Part One, I covered the broad theme of explorers driven to find new worlds and establish their visions of Utopia.  Every individual has their own ideas of Utopia so therefore this never works as is the case of Allie Fox in The Mosquito Coast.

Now let’s focus in on Allie Fox himself.  I bet anybody who has seen this movie came out of it with a strong opinion of him.  He has a strong personality.  He looks like an ordinary fellow, but we just can’t help noticing his self-confidence and belief in openly sharing his ideas to anybody within earshot.  I’ll admit right now that I think Allie Fox is a fascinating character.  Is he the way he is just because he wants to be different?  How much of what he says is truly what he believes and how much is just to get his way?

Who is Allie Fox? 

I’ll go over some of the same points as part 1, but only because they fit these points as well.

Allie thinks of himself as “The Last Man”, the one who will save civilization, the last one who knows how.

Allie’s son Charlie thinks of his father as a “genius”.  He listens to Allie rant on and soaks it all in.  Charlie is the eldest son and is clearly Allie’s favorite child.  Charlie is the apparent heir of Allie’s genius.

Jerry is Allie’s second son.  He’s always unsure of his father, his visions, and his intentions.  He’s not the believer Charlie is and is therefore mostly ignored by Allie.

I have to point out that this story is being told from the perspective of Charlie.  Charlie, being very much like his father is misogynistic.  We never learn his mother’s name.  She is just referred to as “Mother” – her sole role in the family and the movie.  The same goes for the twin daughters.  They are referred to as “April” and “Clover” in the closing credits, but I don’t believe that either one is called by name during the movie.  They hardly matter in Charlie’s narrative.  Charlie with his bias towards his father, is not an entirely credible narrator.

So what do “Mother” and the daughters think of Allie?  It doesn’t matter and they all seem very accepting of this.  “Mother” is happy when Allie is happy.

Most people outside the family who know Allie think he’s the town nut.

Reverend Spellgood seems to think Allie is a false prophet, or perhaps even the devil who poisons the ears of those who listen.

When Allie brought civilization in the form of farming, organized housing, and finally ice and air conditioning to a village in the Belize jungle, the indigenous people there thought he was a god.  Deep down inside, this is what Allie wanted all along.  For an all too short period, all was well with Allie when his vision appeared to come to reality and it was all due to him. 

Which basically makes Allie a megalomaniac.  He has a God complex.

Allie talks and talks and talks.  He hears only himself and this conditions him into believing he is a god.

Allie can create a person a.k.a. “Fatboy”.

“The Earth’s bellybutton”.  Allie’s position is that he can control even the Earth.  The Earth has human parts like “Fatboy”.

Even Mr. Polski’s employees call Allie “Father”.

"He’s my father too!”

The Bible doesn’t work.  Allie feels he can make this judgment.

Allie wants the wheel.  The need for control.

Allie gets his way.  He takes the wheel as if it’s his boat later on. 

Allie and Spellgood argue.  Allie lambasts his “lack of presumption”.  He also speaks as if he replaced God – “he didn’t, I did!”

The family being excited to go “home” means loss of control to Allie.  Notice how he regains his control.  He uses fear as a tool to control.  He tells his family America doesn’t exist anymore.

In order to perpetuate his own delusion that he is a god, Allie feeds his megalomania by turning negative situations positive with the tool of rationalization.

Mr. Polski rejects ‘Fatboy’.  Allie is disappointed at first, but then tells his boys that it’s a good thing.

Jeronimo is obviously not what Allie expected, but he tells his family it’s perfect.

Allie even rationalizes the destruction of Jeronimo.

“An Ordeal is a Square Deal”.  That’s an interesting quote.  Who said it? Theodore Roosevelt? Or is that Allie’s?

With yet another disaster happening and all seeming to be lost again, we get “I’ve got control!”  as Allie quickly regains his confidence with the found spark plugs and gasoline.  We know this is false because the plugs and gas came from Mr. Haddi and Charlie.  Allie did not have control.

“I’m doing this for all of us.  I’m doing this for you.”  More rationalization.

“Beautiful country, eh Mother.”  Allie goes back to thinking he can make everything right.

Allie’s most human moments are when the 3 mercenaries take over.  He even admits he made a mistake.

Spellgood and his own God-complex.

“And Pharoah said…”

Does Spellgood see the people of Jeronimo as “Israel” meaning slaves?  Allie notes the barbed wire around his property and calls it a “Christian Concentration Camp”.  Spellgood’s upset that “his people” forsook him for Allie. 

Spellgood’s beliefs are opposite of Allie’s.  Spellgood  sees life as a burden where one must accept one’s place in it and endure.  Spellgood is just the man to give comfort to the people that God will ease their burdens.  Allie believes that problems in life are there to be fixed.  Allie is the man up to the task.  Both men are megalomaniacs.

When Allie confronts Spellgood, whom he sees as a foe, the camera angle depicts him like a gunfighter fingering his hammer as if he’s about to be in a quickdraw.

I find the blue and yellow clothing interesting.  Notice how almost everybody wears blue and/or yellow except Allie and Charlie, who mostly wear tan and green.  They see themselves as separate from the others.  Even Spellgood and two men with them are in yellow or blue.  Mother wears white with a blue kerchief.  Looks like she’s a bit in between.

Just as Allie’s temple burned in a raging inferno, so did Spellgood’s. The burning tower resembles “Fatboy” burning.

Omens/Foreshadowing

Throughout the movie, there are little clues or omens that betray the thought that all is right with Allie and his visions.

Polski outright warns Charlie and Jerry that their father is dangerous.

Shadows creeping.  A broken down ancient temple.  I mentioned these in part 1.

Upside-down pyramid on “FatBoy” counters the idea that Allie and “Fatboy” are at the top of things.

Allie get angry when Jerry doesn’t show the awe everyone else does.

Allie’s watch is an “Omega” meaning the end.

Raft looks like a fish skeleton.  Raft of death.

Tyrant at the end.  You think of socialist “utopias” that quickly turned into tyrannies – USSR, China, Cuba. 

Allie realizes he’s just a man at the end.

It’s hard to think of it this way, but the world needs its Allie Foxes.  It needs people who do what everyone else think is crazy.  It’s those like Fox who wake people up and ultimately inspire others.  Progress doesn’t come institutionally from governments or corporations; it comes from risk-takers with self-serving motives.

Back to Blogging?

I'm going to attempt to get back to the personal discipline of writing something at least a couple of times a week.  Much of it really will be pure drivel as I'm doing this for me and not trying to impress or enlighten anybody.  So move along, please.  Nothing to see here.

The Meaning of Love

 

I'm suddenly reminded of an episode of Taxi where Louie DePalma (Danny DeVito) explains what love is.  He's absolutely right!  This is the best explanation of love I have ever heard.

"They're still the Mets.  It's the same room. BUT YOU GOTTA HAVE ZINA THERE!"

For My Eyes Only: Confessions of an Aspie

I turned 60 a couple of weeks ago.  I can definitively say that age has never been an issue with me.  Whether I was in my 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and even 50’s, I never dwelled upon my age beyond just acknowledging to myself where I was in life.  All those birthdays came and went, and I have few memories of any of them.  I never even had a mid-life crisis.  People who know me know I’m down to Earth and logical, perhaps to a fault.

I’m having difficulty accepting that I’m 60.  I think I know why.

I’m writing this for myself.  I’m publishing this for personal reasons that I cannot disclose.  My legacy right now is primarily a few YouTube videos I’ve made.  I need to put something out there more personal and more personally meaningful.  I’m very healthy and strong.  I have no cancer, no heart issues, and all my body parts work.  I don’t plan on going anywhere for a long, long, time.  But when I do go, I know I won’t be remembered.

I swear that I’m not writing this to feel sorry for myself.

I’m autistic.  I’m not “Rain Man” but anybody who understands this and met me would realize I’m “somewhere on the spectrum” as they say.  Ten years ago or so, I would have been labeled as someone with Asperger’s Syndrome.  As I understand it, that term is being used less and less.  It’s not like I really keep up with this stuff, however.

What is it like having Asperger’s?  I’ve read and heard some explanations that never really satisfied me.  So I’ll give you mine.  As someone with Asperger’s, life occurs on the other side of a screen and I’m primarily an observer.   I only partially understand what’s going on the other side of the screen because my brain has problems processing information from my senses.  I see people interacting and it’s all a big mystery.  Blending in with and being part of a group of people is a natural thing for most human beings.  For me, it’s next to impossible because I can’t process new information on the fly.  I have to analyze everything before I can understand it.  Therefore, if I’m exposed, I’ll do everything to go back in front of the screen.  In other words, I tend to not play well with others and come across as shy and awkward.  People I knew or know may remember me for saying inappropriate things at inappropriate times.  There is an ever-growing list of people who used to be in my life whom I have alienated and will have nothing to do with me.  If I had any empathy, I’d actually care.

Ah empathy!  It’s often explained that people with Asperger’s lack it.  For the most part, that’s fairly accurate.  Viewing a sick child or injured animal will make most people sad, even if it’s not their child or pet.  That really doesn’t happen with me.  However, over the years, I’ve learned to “fake” it because I know I’m supposed to feel this way and will be scorned if I don’t.  Deep down, I really am a cold-hearted bastard!  Or am I?

If I lack empathy, why do I still mourn for a dog I lost 24 years ago?  Why does the memory of the vet inserting that injection into him haunt me to this day?  Why do I lie at night wondering where my brother is as he is one of the forementioned people whom I’ve alienated and is no longer in my life?

I’m getting better all the time, but Asperger’s will show its ugly head now and then, even at age 60.

I try not to and don’t often think of my childhood, but I’ll make an exception today.  I didn’t know why I was not like the other kids.  I had very few friends if any.  Most kids just saw me as that weird kid who kept to himself and was kind of dumb and klutzy.  There were few who could match me at math or could spell as well as me.  Yet I didn’t get good grades.  I never wanted to learn what the teacher was teaching.  My parents didn’t know what to do with me.  All they knew was that I “wasn’t applying myself”.  I got repeatedly berated and punished.  They made me feel worthless.

It got worse as a teenager.  I never partied.  I never dated.  I couldn’t even talk to girls.  I went through high school angry and scared because I was repeatedly reminded that my future relied on my schoolwork.  I was screaming on the inside, but no one heard me because there was nothing to hear.  

Going into my 20’s found me convinced I had no future and I was a worthless human being.  Those days in the early ‘80’s found me providing food services at Magic Mountain.  Rumor has it I went to college, but that was such a waste of time that I barely remember it and mostly refuse to acknowledge that I ever went.  I didn’t learn a thing except that I’m stupid.

It was a rocky path, but spending more and more time away from my parents was the first step.  At Magic Mountain, I started to figure out I had my own identity.  This may seem strange, but to me it was a revelation.  Believe it or not, I found out I had a sense of humor.  I learned how to say things to make people laugh – I never had that before!  I think I even got some people to genuinely like me.

At age 26, I left home.  That’s late for most, but scary for me.  I still didn’t have my act together, but I moved in with someone who gave a gentle push and helped me tremendously.  It’s too bad that became a relationship that would sour.  I still had a ways to go.

Entering my 30’s found me angry and frustrated.  I had become a bad person.  I was convinced I had no future and was rude and snarky to a lot of people.  I had become very unreliable.  No one could count on me as I only thought of myself.  Others my age were married and had children.  I wanted that too but was clueless of how to get there.  I was jealous.  My career at the time was computer retail sales and I absolutely hated it.  I was such a loser!

In a dead end career, in a dead end situation, in a dead end life, I suddenly decided to fix my life.  I can’t really explain what the moment was or if it was a moment, a day, or even a year.  With literally no valuable skills, I developed some.  I mentioned earlier that I was a poor student.  I always hated classrooms and still do.  For years, I had dabbled in how to use computers for video and animation.  It helped me in selling this stuff.  Why not fully dive into it?  I’m a good student when I’m teaching myself and that I did.  I taught myself so well that in a very short time, my skills were marketable.  So marketable in fact, a college hired me to be a part-time instructor.  I ended up teaching video editing and 3D animation in Hollywood for 2.5 years!  I still can’t get over what an amazing break that was.  The school found out one day that I lacked a college education that they had assumed I had and they dismissed me. 

It hardly mattered.  In my early 30’s, I found myself.  Nothing was going to stop me now!  All the self-doubt and low self-esteem I had all my life were replaced by genuine drive and ambition.  Within just a few years, I made myself as a respected person in the legal industry and even got married.  Incidentally, this was also the time I found out I was autistic.  I never knew or even suspected.  I always had just assumed something was just plain wrong with me.

It took me 30+ years to learn what Robert Wilson was capable of.  For me, life truly began at age 30.  The Asperger’s never left, but it’s no longer a mystery or an obstacle, it’s who I am. 

I lost my wife to a series of strokes starting 6 years ago.  She’s alive, but she’s so physically and mentally impaired that she is no longer the person I had married.  She’s now an obligation (I have to feed, wash, and dress her).  I am essentially a widower.  So I’m 60 with parents who’ve both passed away years ago, a brother whom I haven’t spoken to for years, very few friends, and there is a person who used to be my wife living in my house.  Yet, I never felt lonely these past years.  That has changed.  “Aspie’s” are used to being alone.  Even among friends, we are always alone to a certain extent.  Loneliness is a fairly new experience for me.  Why am I suddenly lonely?

...

Citizen Ruth and Downsizing Paul

I’m going to look at two more films directed by Alexander Payne.  They happen to be his first major film and as of right now in 2022, his most recent film.  Let’s first take a look at Citizen Ruth.

Citizen Ruth set the framework that exists throughout the Payne universe.  It features a slice of the lives of flawed, sometimes unlikeable characters – usually from the State of Nebraska.  Payne characters are not glamorous or heroic.  They’re just ordinary people most of us see and deal with every day.

This came out in 1996.  Laura Dern plays Ruth Stoops.  Ruth is despicable.  I mean she is a horrible person.  She is uneducated, vulgar, promiscuous, and never thinks of anybody or anything but herself.  She will ingest just about anything in order to get high.  

She is also manipulative.  Whenever she is in need or confronted, she will break down into a pathetically false cry for help – promising that she will turn her life around.  We know it’s false because she goes right back to being her despicable self as soon as she gets her way.  Nobody, and I mean nobody loves or even likes Ruth. 

But this movie is not about Ruth.

When she gets pregnant and has a judge slyly suggest that she get an abortion in order to avoid jail, suddenly, everyone is interested in Ruth.  Well, not really.  What is really happening is people overlook her vileness and see her as a cause.

A quintessential mid-American family intercedes and takes Ruth into their home to save her from the abortion she wants.  This family belongs to an organization that believes in taking in young pregnant women and convincing them not to have an abortion.  This is the place in the film where many in the viewing audience are going to think to themselves “Here we go with a typical Hollywood propaganda film that’s going to shove the pro-abortion narrative down our throats.”

It does seem this way.  This “wholesome” family seems to be exactly how pro-abortionists would portray such a family.  They are dysfunctional.  They are not the clean, god-fearing, All-American nuclear family they seem to be on the surface.

"I was quite a sinner before I married Gail."

The mother and father are always praying and singing and praising God and working religion into their common speech.  

Then you get the doctor and nurse always smiling and treating Ruth like a child.  The head of the anti-abortionist organization is clearly not the wholesome man of God he portrays.

Yes.  You can see these people seem to be an amalgam of stereotypical anti-abortionists.  This movie reeks of modern Hollywood filmmaking.

Or does it?  

We get to see the other side too.  Ruth ends up with the pro-abortionists and we can see they’re just as fake.  They perceive themselves as at war with the other side.

Just like the anti-abortionists, Ruth becomes a cause to the pro-abortionists.  They’ll support Ruth’s decision as long as she chooses abortion.  They soon figure out she is a worthless, scum of a woman.  But they take advantage of her desperate situation. 

Ruth ultimately miscarriages which would nullify the whole debate except that, Ruth being Ruth, doesn’t tell anyone and gets away with $15,000, no abortion to deal with, and no causes to suffer through.  She will go back to her previous life.  

Harlan, the man she effectively stole the money from, knew who she was.

"Ruth!  I don't want to burst your bubble, but you and I both know that'd money be gone in three days tops."

Again, this is not about Ruth.  Ruth is merely a vehicle whom the story uses to present the abortion issue to the viewers.  It can even be said that the movie itself, exploits Ruth to present an idea.  Some may argue that Citizen Ruth is a pro-abortion film.  Some may argue that it’s an anti-abortion film.  People see in films what they want to see.  I personally think it’s neither.  It just presents the issue and gives us something to think about.

Then you have Paul Safranek played by Matt Damon.  He, like Ruth, finds himself in the middle of two sides of an issue.  Paul is not a horrible example of a human being as is Ruth.  Paul just happens to be the blandest human being on Earth.  Paul doesn’t stand for anything.  He’s the proverbial reed floating downstream and goes where the flow takes him.   To be fair, his wife Audrey Safranek is just as boring as he is. 

Throughout the film Downsizing, Paul is bombarded with other people’s opinions.  He in turn, is influenced by every single one of them because he can’t think on his own. His friend encourages him to downsize and live in Leisure Land.  Paul does this.  The saleslady flatters Paul because she knows exactly how to manipulate him into upgrading his purchase.  This makes Paul a perfect vehicle to put the viewers through the climate change issue.

The act of downsizing is a fictional near-future process of shrinking people down to 5 inches tall in order to deal with world problems such as pollution and over-population. 

But this film isn’t about downsizing.  That’s the problem.  At least, that’s the problem many viewers had, and this shows in the many, many negative reviews throughout the Internet.  

The trailers for Downsizing led the public into the belief that this would be a goofy comedy with small people in a big people world.  People went into the theater ready to laugh at over-sized objects and unusual ordeals people five inches tall would have to deal with.  Instead, they left the theater scratching their heads wondering what they just witnessed.

The many negative reviews and poor box-office numbers show that people don’t like being bamboozled.  Also, many felt they were deliberately deceived into watching yet another propaganda Hollywood flick meant to shove left-wing perspectives down their throats.

They were mostly right.

Downsizing, indeed, does seem to preach about the human race needing to do something now before it’s too late.  In this fictional future, the downsizing process is the solution, but the tipping point has already been reached.  Now, we’re doomed.

"The world has already seen five major extinctions, and now there will be another."

Since Downsizing puts the viewers in the perspective of Paul, it’s easy to fall into the same trap he does.  That is to take everything presented at face value.  We already know that Paul is easily impressed.  The downsizing process amazes him.  He is thrilled to meet the surviving Vietnamese woman who had 15 minutes of fame.  He is starstruck with meeting “Little Ronnie”, the first small-born person.  Of course, he is impressed with Dr. Jorgen Asbjørnsen, the scientist who invented downsizing.  He and his coalition of 26 Nobel Prize winners all deemed that an extinction level event was inevitable.  That was certainly enough for Paul.  He buys the tale completely.

Would you buy this story?  I ask because in the real world, we are being repeatedly told that 97% of scientists in the world agree that a climate disaster is upon us.  So, does the typical movie viewer get influenced by statements like this?  Are many or most of us like Paul?

Meet Dusan Mirkovic.  He is played brilliantly by Christoph Waltz.    He sees through all the salesmanship most of the rest of the world succumbs to.  He is not small to save the planet.  In fact, he despises most small people because he knows that going small for most, is a way to upgrade social standing with the bonus element of believing they are “saving the planet”.  

Dusan is small only because he is an opportunist.  He figures out that small people are going to have needs nobody else thought of.  Dusan is the opposite of Paul, but Dusan seems to see Paul as a challenge.  He quickly figures out who Paul is and how malleable his perspectives can be.  Dusan becomes a father figure to Paul.

“Dusan will save you.”

Dusan not only saves Paul, he saves the whole movie.  He doesn’t believe in all the doom and gloom stuff that everyone else is being sold.  He subtly guides Paul into thinking for himself.  It takes Paul the rest of the movie to finally realize what he really wants out of life.  Dusan is the smartest individual in the movie.

Let’s take a quick look at “Little Ronnie”, the first person born small.  Paul sees him as a celebrity.  Dusan sees him as a loser who will likely die of syphilis.  This is symbolic of how Paul was sold, but Dusan understands the truth. 

The big explosion that was supposed to occur near the end was a little “pop”.  This is also symbolic that the looming big disaster may not be such a big deal.

Like Citizen Ruth, Downsizing presents the issue and doesn’t take a stand.  Citizen Ruth is a simpler story, so the message is clearer.  Downsizing has the problem that it misled the audience into thinking this was a comedy, or a modern version of the old TV show Land of the Giants.  It also has the problem of taking too long to get to its somewhat clouded message.  Today’s movie audiences are generally not patient enough to go through all of this.

I have another few points about Downsizing.  There’s a dark undertone in the film as well.  Ngoc Lan Tran was shrunk against her will and shipped to the U.S. in a box to dispose of her.  The brief news report hints that this is a common way governments can get rid of “undesirables”.  Not every small person lives the good life.  There’s an exposed area outside of Leisure Land that has become a slum for these undesirables.  Notice how the “big” nurses that are at the beginning of the process are white females, but the nurses at the other “small” end are black males with foreign accents.

How can Dusan sell cigars for one dollar each instead of fifty dollars?  You’ll think at first that since there is so much less material and that would be true.  However, who’s making these cigars?  The labor involved would be the same, if not more.  Dusan speaks of “tiny Albanians”.  It sounds to me like low-wage, if not slave labor in this small world.

The drunk guy at the bar raises some interesting points about small people having the same rights as big people even though they don’t contribute as much to society, overall.  Notice how his little rant are common arguments about homeless people and illegal immigrants.

“You’re not buying as many products.  You’re not paying any sales tax.  Some of you aren’t paying any income tax.  I mean you’re not really participating in our economy, are you?  In fact, you’re costing us money and jobs.”

One more note.  I am linking similarities between Citizen Ruth and Downsizing.  There is a more direct link in that Laura Dern (Ruth) makes a brief appearance in Downsizing.